Last of the Honky-tonk Angels

A Novel

From Marsha Moyer, the critically acclaimed author of "The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch, comes a second novel as rich in atmosphere and heart, as brimming full of colorful, unforgettable small-town characters and incidents as her notable debut.

On a lazy June morning in Mooney -- a wooded patch of sparsely populated northeast Texas -- a shiny red Chrysler sedan pulls up to the home of Lucy Hatch and her live-in beau Ash Farrell, depositing a teenage girl on their doorstep before speeding away. For Ash, town carpenter and musician, the unheralded arrival of his daughter, Denise -- whom he hasn't seen in nearly eight years -- is a major life-altering shock. It's a surprise for Lucy as well, since she's had little reason till now to recall the fourteen-year-old's existence. And the unanticipated intrusion is certain to further complicate Lucy's increasingly complex relationship with Ash, now that she has discovered she is pregnant with his child.

Angry, rebellious, and uncertain -- havingbeen unceremoniously dumped by her mother on the father she barely knows and the stranger who now shares his life -- Denny must somehow find a place where she belongs in a town far tinier than any that has imprisoned her before. But it's not until she picks up Ash's guitar -- and hears the songs that were born in her father's heart -- that Denny and Ash are drawn closer together by the common bond of music. In its haunting strains and true emotions lies hope -- that Denny